Gregory Koop

Gregory Koop is a cognitive psychologist with expertise in recognition memory and judgment and decision making (JDM). His teaching interests cover a variety of introductory and upper level courses, including General Psychology (PSYC 101), Cognitive Psychology (PSYC 342, BMS 572), Research in Psychology (PSYC 472), and Research in Psychology: Applied (PSYC 473). Greg is particularly enthusiastic about engaging undergraduate students in research through Research in Psychology and Research in Psychology: Applied. This year long course sequence enables students to design and complete their own research projects or advance ongoing research from his lab.
Greg’s research evaluates how individuals make decisions. Specifically, how do we decide whether or not we’ve met a person before (e.g., Koop, Criss, & Malmberg, 2014), or whether we prefer one picture to another (e.g., Koop & Johnson, 2013)? Models of recognition and preferential choice often assume that people continuously accumulate “evidence” en route to making these decisions, so Greg’s research uses dynamic methods to depict this evidence accrual process. Additional research interests include the moral decision-making process and the impact of reference points (e.g., a goal or a minimum requirement) on an individual’s risk-taking behavior. For Greg’s CV and a full list of publications, please visit his personal site.